Two of the worst fates in the world: to not know why people like what you do, and to get thrown into the big bin marked “not bad” that contains 99% of human endeavors which are quickly forgotten.

Colored Sands, which sees release today, attempts to recapture the magic of Obscura and From Wisdom to Hate. On the surface, one would see these as a collection of techniques: off-time riffs, odd chord voicings, “deep” lyrics and an affinity for classical music.

Unfortunately, that’s all Gorguts took from their back catalog.

As said above, this reviews damns this CD with the faint praise of “not bad.” It’s much better than the rest of the tek-deth genre, but that’s sort of like saying that chainsaw dismemberment is better than Evola. The real problem with Colored Sands is that it’s transparent.

You can imagine a group of guys sitting in a room thinking, “How do we make a death metal album edgy?” For starters, they throw in the list of techniques I mentioned. But then they use very similar rhythms, song structures, riff types and even sequence of chord voicings.

We could call this “the Opeth effect”: for an instant audience, make music that sounds difficult but in fact is moron-simple and predictable, because it allows people to pose at being elite. It’s in full effect here, as bad as on the second Cynic album. It’s progressive music for pop fans.

Most of us had higher expectations because Gorguts traditionally held themselves to a higher standard. But what’s here is 50% traditional death metal and 50% tech-deth dressed up as prog, and it’s boring. The best part is the brief classical piece in the style of the Russians, which is both populist and not all that exciting in the convention of that style.

The existence of modern death metal — the merging of multiple genres together and slapping the veneer of death metal over it should result in a product that does not appeal to any of the fans of the individual genres, as they will always have purer distillations of each type of metal available — fascinates me. Nevertheless, the genre exists and is evidently quite popular with someone, as numerous bands in the genre arise all the time and reach some measure of success.

Throne of Heresy is such a band, and is an able defender of this type of composition: any type of metal that has been popular over the past two decades is thrown into a blender and the result is a competent but stylistically confused product. Each section of the tracks is well-composed and well executed , though what’s lacking is any sense of purpose or meaning. The progenitors of each style of metal represented here had an intention behind their work, a desire to create art that is conspicuously absent on this EP.

Featuring a decidedly verse-chorus structure, the songs consist of tonally ambiguous palm-muted riffs morphing into admittedly catchy choruses that give way to whatever School of Metal technique is the flavor of the day: it could be a “melodic” solo, an awkward semi-clean breakdown, or perhaps even a key change. What makes these sectional divides even more jarring is that there is very little in the song to indicate when they are occurring, or indeed why they are occurring.

This is not to give the impression that there is nothing of merit occurring: the vocals on the whole are solid death metal belts, though on times they do take on the angry for the sake of being angry tinge that is ingrained in modern metal. Each of the instruments is composed and played well, but the lack of intention or drive that so characterizes modern metal creates an obstacle that cannot be overcome.

It seems to me that bands such as this are suffering from an identity crisis: they are trying to appeal to fans of every genre of metal. While this may be a sound financial decision, it is not a good artistic decision, which is a shame as there is definitely a core of talent to be explored here.

The re-formed Gorguts today released the first substantial sample we have from their new album, Colored Sands, which will be available on September 3 in the United States and August 30 in the rest of the world via Season of Mist. The default medium will be the CD digipak but Colored Sands will also be available on vinyl LP, including black vinyl, yellow in red vinyl (limited to 150 copies), and clear vinyl (limited to 350 copies).

The big question for Hessians is whether Colored Sands will sound like nu-core, either frenetic Gothenburg-styling finger wiggling or breakdown-heavy antsy post-hardcore noise like the tek-deth noodlers. The answer is surprisingly that this band is in a three-way tie between slowed-down droning alternative metal like Gojira, technical death metal of the old school, and the new school of jazz-influenced indie-style progressive metal. Unfortunately, it’s not very exciting because as you can imagine, the focus is on form, and not content.

For example, “Forgotten Arrows” tries to hard to be about something but the music doesn’t match. It’s cut from multiple skeins of metal and alternative/indie rock cloth, but the song never gets a voice of its own. All of it is well-executed, and it avoided the irritating aspects of nu-core, which is commendable. However, it never really gains a spirit, like older Gorguts did.

That being said, this is only one track, and it’s a lot better than expected for the title (which may reflect a Vedic influence) and the addition of people like Colin Marston, who while he was a friendly and articulate fellow when I met him, is forever damned in metal for releasing the droning black metal imitation flavoring turd Krallice. The new guitarist and drummer seem to keep up admirably with grand old metal man Luc Lemay and his adroit fingers.